The park lads were coming off a hard fought win over their neighbours in the 1st round to now take on the might of the Desmond league Abbeyfeale Utd. A win for the Park would take this team into unchartered waters as they were knocked out at this stage last season to Aisling Annacotty. In tough weather conditions for both teams, the football wasnt pretty at times but the park lads managed to grind out a hard fought win over a resilient opponent.
1st Half
The park made a fast start from the kick off, with the central midfield trio of Junior, Colin and mervin dominating possession and pressing high up the pitch the park got a corner kick, Mervin stepped up and whipped in a low penetrating ball which the visiting defence failed to deal with and the park centre back Cian toe poked past the keeper to the net, 2mins in and the park had a 1 goal advantage, which settled the lads and for the next 10 min period it was all park who created some gilt edged chances from mervin, sean and nathan but failed to convert, the park lads were struggling to keep their passing game up & the visiting team slowly grew into the game and dominated the next 15min period and were close to equalising on a couple of occasions. The park lads battled hard in defence and a strong headed ball by Rhys from the heart of the backline to mervin who neatly passed to Sean who broke thru the oposition and fired on goal with the keeper parring the ball, mervin struck the rebound to the net, 2-0 to the park at the break.
2nd Half
Again the park made a fast start to the 2nd half and thru a great move out from defence thru midfield to Sean who threaded the ball to Mervin coming in on the right post but his shot from 5 yds just shaved the post. The lads didnt create much over the next 10 min period but instead had to defend their lines on several occasion as Abeyfeale bombarded them with long range balls over the top and it was from one of these balls that the visitors were warded a free outside the box which was duly dispatched to the corner with Gavin only managing to parring into the corner of the net, 2-1 and it was game on! The game was now being fought out in both tems defensive 3rds and the visitors kept up the aerial bombardment in search of the equaliser, to be fair to the Park defence particularly Rhys and Kevin they managed to keep their lines clear. The last 5 mins the Park midfield created a few chances from Mervin on the left wing but due to good goal keeping and poor finishing were unable to get the insurance goal. The final whistle 2-1 to a releived Park Team as the result could easily have in favour of the visitors who never gave up the fight.
On reflection with the weather conditions the performance was not pretty but sometimes you have to dig deep and grind out a result which the Park lads managed to achieve.
The reward for the lads will be a 3rd round home tie versus the North Tipp champions BT Harps in 4 weeks time
Players of Note: Gavin,Kevin, Greg, Jordan & Mervin,
Man of the Match: Rhys Keane, a superb match winning defensive display, tackled hard and gave 100% to the final whistle.
Squad on the Day: Gavin Doody, Cian Purcell, Darragh Moriarty, Kevin Goulding, Rhys Keane, Junior Ankomah, Colin Walsh, Mervyn Shalemba, , Nathan Gleeson, Liam Tobin, Sean McGrath , Richard O Gara,Greg Scanlon, Conor O’ Sullivan, Elliot Lynch, Tide Osinubi, Eoin Higgins, Jordan Mason
Note: New winter training times Mondays & Fridays 7 – 8pm from this Mon 20th Oct.
